Key Points
- Hackney Art Week will return in 2026 as a free, 10-day arts festival across Hackney.
- The event will include exhibitions, markets, workshops, performances, immersive installations, street parties, live music and an art treasure hunt.
- Organisers say the festival will take over venues across the borough, including galleries, pubs, bakeries, delis and other local spaces.
- Named venues include Raleigh Chapel, Chats Palace, The Rose Lipman Building, St Augustine’s Tower and ESEACC at The Old Bath House.
- Highlights mentioned for the 2026 programme include the Dalston Cultural Quarter Takeover and The Sandwich Walk installation on Wilton Way.
- Hackney Art Week was founded in 2025 by local residents Lisa Baker and Anna McHugh.
Hackney (Extra London News) April 17, 2026 — Hackney Art Week is set to return this June with a larger programme that will spread across multiple neighbourhoods in the borough, according to Time Out London, which reported the festival’s expansion.
As reported by Time Out London, the free-to-attend festival will run for 10 days and will feature exhibitions, markets, workshops, performances, immersive installations, street parties, live music and an art treasure hunt. The publication said the event will be free for all to attend this June.
Which venues will take part?
The programme will stretch across a range of spaces in Hackney, including both cultural venues and everyday local businesses. Time Out London said venues involved include Raleigh Chapel, Chats Palace, The Rose Lipman Building, St Augustine’s Tower and ESEACC at The Old Bath House.
The festival will also take over pubs, bakeries, delis and other well-known Hackney spots, showing that the event is designed to move beyond traditional gallery settings. Hackney Art Week’s own website describes the festival as a celebration that transforms galleries, pubs, cafes and public spaces into artistic hubs.
What are the headline events?
One of the main programme features is the Dalston Cultural Quarter Takeover, scheduled for June 6 and 7. Time Out London reported that this event will bring workshops, artist open studios, a ceramics market and a street-level sound system to Arcola Street.
Another highlighted event is The Sandwich Walk by Jeanne Gourlaouen, described as a surreal installation on Wilton Way featuring absurd shoe-slash-sandwich sculptures. The report said the work is intended to make visitors “look twice,” though that phrase comes from the article’s description rather than a direct quote from an attributed source.
Who founded the festival?
Hackney Art Week was founded in 2025 by local residents Lisa Baker and Anna McHugh. Its website says the annual event was launched as a community-focused celebration of creativity, culture and local artistic expression.
The official festival site also says the first edition took place from June 12 to 22, 2025, across neighbourhoods including Hackney Central, Dalston, Stoke Newington, London Fields, Clapton and De Beauvoir. That early format helps explain why the 2026 version is being described as a borough-wide expansion.
Why is it expanding?
The reports indicate that the 2026 edition is larger than last year’s festival and will extend its reach across a broader stretch of Hackney. The festival’s own description shows an ambition to bring art into ordinary community spaces as well as established cultural venues.
This approach suggests the event is aiming to make contemporary art more visible and accessible to local residents and visitors. It also reflects a format that blends culture, neighbourhood activity and public participation.
Background of the development
Hackney Art Week began in 2025 as a new annual festival focused on creativity, culture and community. The first edition positioned itself as a borough-wide event, with multiple neighbourhoods and a mix of exhibitions, performances, screenings, talks and workshops.
The 2026 edition builds on that foundation by widening the footprint and adding more public-facing elements, including immersive installations and a treasure hunt. In that sense, the development is less about a change in concept and more about an expansion of scale and reach.
Prediction
For local audiences in Hackney, the wider 2026 programme is likely to increase footfall in neighbourhood venues, give more visibility to emerging artists and make the festival more noticeable within the borough. For residents, it may also mean more opportunities to attend free cultural events close to home.
For businesses taking part, the event could bring extra attention to pubs, cafes, bakeries and smaller community spaces that are included in the programme. For visitors, the borough-wide format may make the festival feel less like a single-location event and more like a walkable cultural trail across Hackney.
